What you need to know
- Dragon Age is an upcoming action-adventure role-playing title created by BioWare. BioWare is also the creators of the award-winning Mass Effect franchise.
- In a Q&A session on their Discord, the BioWare developers answered a long list of questions from their community.
- During the session they revealed that there would be no online requirements, no microtransactions, and no battle passes!
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is an upcoming action-adventure role-playing title created by BioWare, the award-winning creator of Mass Effect. It’s been ten years since the last game, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and fans are frothing at the mouth for more information. Since the initial reveal during the Xbox Games Showcase, BioWare has completed a number of interviews and today they held a special Q&A on their Discord.
In it, they answered a variety of questions related to gameplay, characters, classes and more. When answering the question of whether or not decisions from previous games can be imported, Corinne Busche responded: “We’ve taken a different approach this time around to how you import your decisions; it is now actually fully integrated into the Character Creator. The creator of the characters actually has a dual purpose. It’s been ten years since the last Dragon Age game was released. So it serves as a refresher course for important events.”
Continuing, she added: “It’s really important to us, though, that it’s built into the client. You can play this game completely offline; no connection. You don’t need to link to your EA accounts. That was a very big request. So the refresher course plus those decisions are in the customer.”
Wonderful news! Much like how Witcher 3 worked when players loaded in, they have the option to select which events occurred during the previous games, rather than needing that data. This not only allows players who may have lost their saves years ago to continue their journey, but also allows returning veterans to go back in time and mulligan on a decision they regret. Moreover, this entire system is offline in the client. Players don’t need the internet as they explore the game or make the choices they made before.
No microtransactions, no battle passes
As if the news she delivered couldn’t get any better, Corinne later also announced that there would be no microtransactions whatsoever. “We are 100% focused on making this the most complete game we can make. I want to underline this. I want to emphasize it. There will be no microtransactions. There will be no battle passes. “We don’t have to connect online; our focus is to make this the most complete single-player game we can,” said Corinne.
It was a defining moment, with users in the Discord chat cheering left and right in all-caps and celebratory emojis. This presentation from BioWare was an absolute slam dunk. One that revealed a lot of information that fans were concerned about. I’ll write a separate article on some of the news that emerged from this discussion, but the most essential information is here. This will be a focused single-player experience without unnecessary monetization goals that ruin the experience. Bravo BioWare, bravo!
And you? Does this news add to your excitement or rejuvenate what you may have lost after the initial revelation? I know it applies to me. It gives me so much joy to see an artistic team so focused on the player. It stinks that this is the modern era of gaming where we have to question these practices in single-player games, but developers who fight against that view should always be supported! You like to see it. Let us know below if this appeals to you too, or on our social media!